According to Deadline Hollywood, IESB and Variety all is not well in Spideyland. Sony and the team were originally aiming to start filming in February/March, however according to their sources some people are not happy with the script, such as director Sam Raimi, and filming will most likely be pushed back until it can be sorted. Alvin Sargent who worked on the second and third films is the latest writer to work on the script, following David Koepp, James Vanderbilt and Gary Ross.
The problems apparently surround the villain(s). We heard around a month ago that John Malkovitch was in talks to play The Vulture, and Anne Hathaway was negotiating to play The Vulturess (or something like that).
Raimi is insisting that John Malkovich play the villain, so that won’t change. But I do hear that it’s now unlikely Anne Hathaway will be cast. “I’m not so sure we’re going in that direction,” an insider told me recently. Sony had been hot for her until bigwigs realized she’d cost too much and they probably don’t need “such a big star” for the pic, I’m told.
Spider-Man 4’s release date is still May 2011, however the longer it takes to sort out the script and get cameras rolling, the likelihood that the release is pushed back increases.
Sam Raimi knows what mistakes were made regarding the villains in Spider-Man 3, so pushing the films back a few months will be worth it if we get a film better than the last outing, with less overcrowding in the villain department.
